I mean, no one's asking you to marry the guy! Just don't sneer at him, or belittle him, or even (if you simply can not keep your heteronormative judgments to yourself) pollute his air with your breath. Under normal circumstances, I'd struggle to find something polite to say about the pinkness of the exercise, despite the really wonderfully clear message of self-acceptance and a dropping of one's internalized homophobia about 'nelly queens' or 'femmes' or, generally, men who don't fit the masculine stereotype. And that explains why I rated this graphic memoir a full four stars when 1) I HATE PINK and b) I ain't wild about sequential-art storytelling in general. (I confess I don't understand why his parents' 1967 Peugeot was evil but I totally support his assessment of the W114 Mercedes-Benz as the Vehicle of the Antichrist.) And at a crucial moment, the aforementioned Citroën CX does a Back-to-the-Future-esque cameo. How do I know this about him? He draws all of his cars very carefully, so I can see them vividly. Probably because I drove one and had A Crisis. He prefers the first year, 1974 where I idolize the 1978 Pallas model. Frankly I don't think that is the case because he and I share a favorite car: The godlike Citroën CX. It's the hands of their parents that do the most damage, though it looks like Author Ebensperger's parents were either remarkably chill, if significantly out of their depth, or he glossed over some stuff. And weird kids suffer at the hands of their peers. What Author Ebensperger experienced, then, as a youth in a macho culture, wasn't external affirmation or even acceptance. But like everywhere else on Earth, at every time since there have been humans on Earth, people been usin' what they got to get their groove on since forever. The country legalized same-sex, um, relations in 1999.

My Review: Chile isn't exactly famous for its history of QUILTBAG rights protections. I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. The author, along the way to becoming an adult, realizes that the scrutiny of the world never ends, and that true acceptance must come from within yourself. The vibrant bright pink pages of Gay Giant paint a picture of what it was like to grow up being gay in the ’90s. Gabriel Ebensperger shares with us his struggles with his own inadequacy, his feelings of guilt, and above all, his fear that his “difference” will be discovered. A boy who sings on the playground instead of playing soccer, who likes Barbies, and whose secretly favorite toy car is the one called Tutti Frutti. The Publisher Says: A child who feels like an outsider in a world that’s set against him.

Gay Giant by Gabriel Ebensperger